


Snow

by Bonne_Niviati



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: M/M, blankets and snuggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonne_Niviati/pseuds/Bonne_Niviati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by teapirate's fantastic fanart, Cousland and Zevran take some time to reflect on things on their way out of the Frostback mountains. Cuddles and blankets avast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow

I had never seen such a blanket of snow, tundra far as far as they eye could see.

And there, at the backdrop of it all stood the peaks of the Frostback mountains. Majestic in all senses, looming over all they surveyed, casting jagged shadows.

The crisp air had been a welcome relief from the months spend underground in Orzammar, but soon the cold bit at us.

Soon we walked under heavy snowfall, each of us wrapped up in as many cloaks as was practical.

He had never once complained, however, despite how he’d shiver in the night.

I wondered if he’d ever seen snow before.

Did they even have snow in Antiva?

I made a mental note to ask him.

Then I realised I’d done that before, with countless other things.

There was so much I wanted to ask him, so many things I needed to know.

A million questions.

Perhaps I’d try asking him again tonight.

 

The evening was fast approaching, and only me and Alistair remained awake.

Fatigue was as dreaded an enemy as the archdemon these days, more so as the days grew shorter and the weather wilder.

Orzammar had been a trial for us all, and the hard days walk from the mountains even more so.

“Are the ladies okay?” I ask, striding about the camp wrapped up in the thickest shawl I could find.

I paced over my own footsteps in the snow, the tracks made neat little circuits around the fire-pit that Alistair crouches by, desperately striking at it with a flint and tinder.

“Ladies?” Alistair says with a roll of his eyes, pausing in his efforts. “Morrigan’s probably still awake doing Maker-knows-what, but Leliana’s well away, and Wynne went down about an hour ago.”

Good, they’d need their strength for the return to Redcliffe.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay on watch tonight? It’s going to get cold. And dark.” Alistair warns me, with a nod up to the skies.

I look up too, to the cloud-heavy heavens.

The light was fading now, the bright edges of the day were slowly being worn away, giving way to dusk.

“I’ll be fine.” I reassured him, even though he furrows his brow at me. “What about Zevran?”

Alistair looks at me even more pointedly, but I hold his gaze.

He finally concedes with a sigh.

“He went for a walk, Caleb, but he told me that if you came asking to tell you that he’s fine.”

It takes a minute for that message to make sense in my head.

“A walk?” I mutter, and immediately my mind is flooded with dark visions.

There was snow for as far as the eye could see, one lone elf could get lost in that easily enough.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, and rubbed my eyes.

“He said he’d be back soon, too.”

I try and quell the concern as best I can.

“Good.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Good.”

 

It was a matter of minutes before Zevran returned to the camp, though it felt like an age.

Alistair had spotted him, and clicked his fingers at me, interrupting my languid stares into the small fire we had managed to conjure.

I stood to see for myself.

There was no mistaking that fair hair, that hood.

“I’ll leave you to it.” he had whispered, nudging me a little before stalking off to his own tent, and disappearing behind the white veil.

I couldn’t hold back a smile to see him.

Unharmed, it seemed.

I watched him approach, a lone figure in the snow.

He knew I watched him, and so took his time to stride back to the camp, waving a hand at me casually.

I waved back, thought it was more a signal for him to make haste then a greeting.

Maker only knows how I wanted to hold him tonight.

 

He drops to the ground beside me with a small exhale.

He had taken his sweet time to remove all the blades from his person, producing them from belts, pockets and even boots.

It took all the restraint I had not to simply tackle him to the floor.

“Did you enjoy your walk, love?” I ask as he leans into my chest.

I go to push golden hair behind his ears, but his hand catches me with all the deftness I’d come to admire.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry.”

I kiss the top of his head, and I feel him sigh heavily.

“Is something wrong?”

_Something is wrong, something’s been wrong for a little while now._

He won’t tell me, however.

That was probably what the walk was for.

He twists round to fix me with a sleepy sort of smile.

“No.”

I gently trace the line of his jaw and he looks up at me still, eyes gleaming.

How can I ever look away?

There’s just something about elven eyes, they’re multifaceted. They caught more of the light, and took it deeper.

He knew just how to use his against me, blinking at me like that from under full lashes.

We just stare at each other for a time, but then he laughs, and bows his head a little.

 

He rests his head on my shoulder as I wrap the shawl around us.

It just manages to cover us both, but I pull him a little closer anyway.

He murmurs something that may have been Antivan, and complies.

I wrap an arm around his hip, and he sighs so lightly that it’s almost a purr.

“It’s good to be under sky again.” I say, stroking the delicate curve of his waist.

“Mmm.”

He’s distracted tonight.

“What are you thinking?”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, but I feel a hand move to clasp mine under the blanket, ceasing the stroking.

“I think,” he begins, casting an eye about the camp. “That I’m beginning to miss Antiva a little less.”

“Oh?”

“Things here are starting to seem a little familiar now.” he says with a roguish grin.

I smile back at him, for I know it is the truth.

He sits up a little to look around the makeshift camp, but I keep my eyes on him, I keep the smile on my face.

He seems to travel with a lighter step now, he’s less wary on the roads for one thing, and he doesn’t jump as much at the sound of barking hounds, too.

How does everything seem to him now?

Is all this Ferelden brown and mud becoming familiar too? I’m sure he once told me of all the colours of Antiva, and well, we certainly had plenty of gray and brown here.

Just how much of a new place can a person take in at once?

How much of their home do they have to leave behind, to welcome in a new one?

He turns to me, probably wondering why I’ve gone so silent all of a sudden.

Seeing me in such deep thoughts, he tilts his head and grips my hand a little tighter.

“You once said you’d never go back to Antiva...” I begin, looking past him and into the fire again.

“Oh, so that’s what’s occupying your thoughts?” he says. I squeeze his hand.

“But I don’t think that’s true.”

“That’s all in the future, as everything is.”

“Oh, what a sage-like thing of you to say!”

“I can be serious, sometimes.” he winks.

_The operative word being **sometimes** , I think._

He’s always less brash like this, sitting with me on these nights.

I always hoped it was because he felt a little safer in my company, but I never asked.

Such appreciations went unsaid, but not unfelt.

“Where’s all your innuendo gone?” I ask, with a chuckle.

He raises an amused eyebrow, before settling back into my chest.

 

The sun finally sinks below the mountains, and a belt of cobalt slowly graces the sky.

Soon it’ll be time for Alistair to relieve us of watch-duty.

I almost hoped he wouldn’t.

Zevran was asleep on my chest, and I lightly brushed my hand against his side, following the soft rise and fall of his breaths.

I wondered what he dreamt of.

Home perhaps?

People?

Her?

I raise my hand to place it lightly on his face.

He stirs in his sleep a little, before slowly blinking up at me.

“I’m sorry! I... I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s snowing.”

I lift my head up, and sure enough, I received a few snowdrops to the face.

He laughs, but it’s a sleepy sound that goes straight to my heart.

“If it gets any worse, we may have to go in the tent.” I say, looking up at the clouds that hovered above us. Inky blots in a twilight sky.

“Can we not go now?” he asks, sitting up in front of me, and pushing the hair out of his face.

He always looks so beautiful having just woken up.

“Let’s just wait a while, shall we?” I say.

If I woke Alistair now, we’d have to deal with a very cranky bastard prince in the morning, and no amount of sleep could make up for that.

“As you wish.”

“Are you cold?”

He blinks, then a shrug.

I curl a hand around his waist, and he immediately draws closer.

“I’ll keep you warm.”

I close my eyes as I feel his hands around my neck, his warmth approach.

His kiss is light tonight.

The passion remains though, but not the lusty aggression of our first few encounters.

Leliana said I had tamed him.

But that wasn’t quite right, it felt more like trust.

Everything was a little more relaxed with him now, a little more tender.

I feel a hand of his comb through my hair.

His lips part a little further under my own, and I briefly entertain his desires before breaking our embrace.

“You’re cruel.” he whispers into my neck, I can feel the churlish smile on his face as he kisses me there.

“I am?”

The kisses stop, and he sits upright again.

His gaze is unshakable, he looks at me, but also past me, perhaps even into me.

“No, no. You’re not cruel at all, are you?”

My hand finds his face again, and my thumb lightly strokes his cheek.

He tries to bow his head, but the other hand of mine gently holds his chin up.

I remember all that I want to ask him, about his stories, his adventures, his life.

I remember I want to ask him of us. I want to ask him of his innermost feelings, even knowing he’ll evade the question as though it were a stray arrow.

A million questions boil up somewhere in my stomach.

He looks at me, with that piercing golden ore.

_Would he confess his love someday?_

“Zevran,” I begin, and I feel his attention sharpen.

“Hmm?”

A million questions...

“Is there snow in Antiva?”


End file.
